Broken Links
by Dustwing
Summary: During the time when Roxas was all there was of Sora, Kairi was still on the Islands. But as Namine began to knit Sora back together, Kairi began to regain her memories of him. How does she feel as she tries to remember her best friend and can't?


Kairi dug her hands into the soft sand of the beach. The tiny granules folded around her fingers, the rough grains hugging her hands like he never had. Or, at least, she thought he never had.

Even now that her memories were starting to come back, Kairi couldn't pin down his face. Features swam behind her eyelids as indistinct as something seen in the fog. That was it... it was like her mind was filled to the brim with fog, and she didn't have a light to pierce it with. Except, the only thing the haze was really interested in was the one person she never wanted to forget. Sora.

She smiled. His name was like a triumph. For the past week or two, she'd only been able to remember little things about him. The way he laughed, or a particular thing he'd said. His name had been like his face for much too long: gone. At least she had that much now.

The ocean lapped quietly at her feet, kissing her bare toes only to retreat backwards. That was kind of like Sora, too; he'd been an important part of her life, she knew it, but then he'd gone away.

Stars twinkled merrily above her. There was no moon tonight, and that made the darkness seem deep and impenetrable. But Kairi knew that even though darkness was all she could see, there was so much more out there. Her hometown on the mainland, for instance, was only a boat ride through the night, and she could walk to the tiny island that Sora and Riku had dueled on. She grinned – yes, that had happened, too. A new memory! They'd kept a score, as well, though she couldn't quite remember the exact numbers.

Kairi strained for more. There had been a race... maybe even two. Bah, they'd probably raced all the time. They'd been competitive, hadn't they? A sunset on that dueling island... a raft...

The fog closed in again. There was no more to remember. Kairi sighed. Her life with Sora and Riku hadn't been only a few snapshots of races and duels! There had been so much more, she knew it!

Kairi shook her hands out of the sand and stood up. She couldn't see farther than a few feet in front of her. Absently, she wondered why she'd come out here so late at night.

_I didn't come out here at night,_ she thought. _I came at sunset, when I remember him best._

Sunset. There was something about the sun going down that triggered her memories of Sora. She reached out with her mind and pulled a half-remembered memory from the fog, one of sitting with him on the dock. That was all she could pin down of that particular sunset – a brief scene on a dock.

There was more, she knew it! There was _so much_ she hadn't remembered. Her memory was filled with black holes that seemed to suck everything that had to do with him into it. Why couldn't she remember him when she remembered Riku so perfectly? Hadn't she spent just as much time with Sora as she had with Riku? It was like her memories had folded around Sora like sand, eclipsing him out of everything, leaving only Riku running across the beach or Riku swinging his sword meaninglessly.

Kairi didn't remember much about what had happened during or after the storm that had destroyed their raft. Her memories of paddling to the island in an attempt to save their crude wooden boat were indistinct, to say the least, and there wasn't much after that. She woke up in a magnificent castle that had seemed so familiar, and that was about it. Whenever she tried to remember specific details of almost anything between the storm and coming back to the island, the fog and the sand closed in again. She had to have been around Sora near constantly. Why couldn't she remember him?

What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she remember her own best friend? What did he do to deserve that? Kairi's hands shook. A painful, powerful feeling erupted in her chest. Anger. Anger at herself, at Sora, at Riku, at the sand beneath her feet, at the absent moon in the sky. Why couldn't she remember anything!

"Sora!" she screamed at the sky, fists balled. Her nails dug into her palms. "I'm _sorry_! Come back _now_!"

Something in her mind burst. Kairi gasped, her anger fading away like it had never existed. It was like the fog and the sand muddling up her mind evaporated all at once in a blinding white light. Faded pictures and broken memories linked up. All her memories flooded back at once. A cave, a lucky charm, a moon motif, an open and kind face, a gummi ship, Hollow Bastion, the Keyblade, Sora, Sora, Sora...

And seven words.

_I'll come back to you! I promise!_

Kairi touched her cheek. Tears flooded over her sandy fingers. She didn't know she'd been crying.

She tilted her head up to the sky. The winking starlight smirked at her from above.

_I know you will._


End file.
